Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

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Celebrate Kirby 64's coming release by checking out more than 25 new pretty screens of the game.

By IGN Staff

When Nintendo and developer HAL first unveiled the latest installment in the popular "Hoshi no Kirby" series, N64 fans were surprised to see a huge departure from the usual platform gameplay. Tentatively titled Kirby's Air Ride, the first Nintendo 64 game to star the amorphous, flying pink puff was first shown in playable form at Nintendo Spaceworld (formerly known as Shoshinkai) in 1995. The graphically bland game featured a single-player and a four-player set-up, in which players rolled around on checkerboard surfaces like giant bowling balls (which was, in fact, Kirby all rolled up). After the show, the game disappeared and didn't surface for another year, when new screenshots of the it popped up in Japanese magazines. Kirby's Air Ride had been redesigned to star a "cooler" Kirby, wearing a baseball hat backward and speeding through hills on a snowboard of sorts.

Now it's 2000 -- and although Kirby has already made his N64 debut in HAL's own Super Smash Bros., N64 owners have yet to get their hands on Kirby's Air Ride. Well, actually -- they never will. Because of an avalanche of racing games and due to ho-hum feedback to the random-course based Air Ride, HAL decided to go back to the drawing boards and came up with a completely different Kirby game. Not surprisingly, the gameplay mechanics bear nothing in common with the design concepts for Kirby's Air Ride -- as a matter of fact, the game looks, plays and feels like the good old Kirby games of old.

Introducing Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. This time around, the objective is to save a kidnapped fairy from a mysterious enemy and to collect crystals that were scattered about the land. As in previous games, Kirby will be able to perform special attacks depending on the enemy that he "sucks in" and, for lack of a better word, assimilates. This way, Kirby can turn his enemy's attack powers against them. For even more powerful attacks, Kirby can also mix his newly learned abilities. Naturally, correct use of these powers is key to making it through the game, but Kirby can now also take weapons that the enemy is carrying to use for his own good. There are so many attacks and moves in this game, it's almost impossible to name them all. Just to give you and idea of what to expect, though, here are a few examples: Kirby can turn into an explosive mine, into a fridge, climb ropes and chains, swallow items and spit them out, hover, pull off spin attacks, produce spikes, turn to stone, roll into a ball, grab and throw enemies, spit fire, and much more.

Graphically, Kirby 64 looks like mixture of Crash Bandicoot and the original Kirby titles. The polygonal landscapes are extremely colorful and stylized and scroll by smoothly at all times. The camera usually shows Kirby from a side to 3/4 view, but it sometimes moves up to follow the action from an isometric perspective.

Outlook Kirby 64 recently released in Japan and IGN64 nabbed the finalized copy for a little play time. The game, much like Yoshi's Story before it, is 2 1/2D to the core, meaning it features a semi-3D look, but plays exactly like the 2D platformers of yesteryear. Kirby is capable of morphing into a ton of fun objects from bow and arrows to lightning bolts and giant rolling rocks, and the trick is to come up with winning combinations of each to progress through the levels. But also like Yoshi's Story, Kirby 64 is aimed at the younger audience and because of this it's bound to be a little too easy for many gamers.

IGN64 will have the full import review of the game soon. Stay tuned.

PS: If you're interested in seeing what Kirby 64 looked like when it was still a racing game, click on the images below labeled "Kirby's Air Ride".